FY19 budget recommendation sees modest increase

Bryan McGonigle bmcgonigle@wickedlocal.com @GtownRecord

Wednesday

Feb 14, 2018 at 1:27 PMFeb 14, 2018 at 1:27 PM

Town Manager Andrew Maylor presented his Fiscal Year 2019 budget recommendation to the Board of Selectmen Monday night, and he’s asking for $97,646,214 general fund spending – a 1.8 percent increase over FY 2018.

Maylor’s budget has a 3.1 percent spending increase on the municipal side and reflects a 3.65 percent increase on the school side in the FY 2019 school budget recommendation.

"In North Andover, being a responsible public administrator requires a practical accountability," Maylor wrote in his summary. "The residents and business owners of the Town of North Andover take great pride in the quality of life that living in our town provides. Consistent with our mission, the local government of North Andover sees its role and goal as preserving or enhancing that quality of life."

Here are some highlights:

The budget calls for a 3.4 percent increase in spending, but that is offset by a $1.3 million reduction in excluded debt, since debt for the middle school and Osgood Hill are being paid off this year. That brings the budget increase down to the 1.8 percent increase previously mentioned.
The budget request includes extras like funding for a tree-planting program, a pilot program supporting families of Alzheimer’s patients.
The recommendation includes $1.1 million for reserves (down about $200,000 from FY 2018): $350,000 for the Capital Stabilization Fund, $78,000 for the General Stabilization Fund, $75,000 for the OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefits) Trust Fund and $550,000 for the Overlay Reserve Fund to pay for tax abatements.
Speaking of OPEB, Retirement costs are 8.9 percent higher, which Maylor expects to be a trend yearly for at least the next decade.
Health insurance premiums are expected to rise 2.3 percent from FY 2018.
Staffing on the municipal side is increased by the equivalent of 2 full-time employees, due to the town seeking to hire a social worker and a part time treasurer/collection employee. Staffing on the schools side is increased by the equivalent of 7 full-time employees, because of the centralized kindergarten expected to open later this year.
Water and sewer rates will remain unchanged for the seventh consecutive year.
Although state aid won't be decided until later in the year, the budget recommendation takes into account what has been given to the town in previous years, and Maylor said the town can absorb any adjustments to that.

Selectman Regina Kean, whose background is in finance, remarked how impressed she was by the amount of detail and thought that went into the more than 260-page recommendation, by Maylor, Town Accountant Lynne Savage and their team.

"It’s a really detailed analysis on each and every item," Kean said. "As a consultant, I’ve done that kind of analysis my whole professional career for companies, and I was really happy to see that."

Maylor replied that unlike years ago, a budget recommendation is a means of communication.

"You should be able to read this, know what a department does if you didn’t otherwise have a familiarity, so you can flip through every page, find out what the mission is, find out what the prior year accomplishment was, what the goal is," Maylor said. "It’s not that others don’t do this, but we’re using a very specific budget model, which is considered the gold standard, and it requires a lot of work by a lot of folks."

The town and the school district continue their cooperation, and for the sixth consecutive year, the town will likely have a consensus budget (one in which the town manager, the School Committee and Finance Committee are in agreement before the budget goes to Town Meeting).

"A phenomenal accomplishment," Selectman Richard Vaillancourt said. "We don’t see that very often in municipalities, with six years running."

You can read the budget recommendation in its entirety on the town website.